Chart Beat

Sabrina Carpenter achieves her first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart (dated Sept. 7), as her new studio album, Short n’ Sweet, debuts atop the tally. The set earned 362,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Aug. 29, according to Luminate — marking her best week ever, and the year’s third-largest debut. The set, which is also her first top 10-charting effort, was announced on June 3, and its Aug. 23 release was preceded by a pair of top three-charting Billboard Hot 100 hit songs: “Espresso” (No. 3) and “Please Please Please” (No. 1).

Meanwhile, the first official release of Travis Scott’s 2014 mixtape Days Before Rodeo opens at No. 2, marking his fifth top five-charting effort. The set earned a little over 361,000 equivalent album units — the year’s fourth-largest debut and biggest week for any rap album. Of that sum, album sales comprise 331,000 – yielding 2024’s second-biggest sales week, and best sales week for any rap album. Days Before Rodeo’s Aug. 23 release was announced on Aug. 18 — the 10th anniversary of the set’s initial free release in 2014. Until Aug. 23, the set had never been commercially released nor officially made widely available through all streaming services.

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Carpenter’s and Scott’s debuts were both aided by social media chatter about them potentially vying for No. 1 on the Billboard 200. The two artists also had promotional help on social media from some very famous friends. Among the endorsements: Taylor Swift shouted out her former Eras Tour mate Carpenter in her Instagram story on Aug. 23, writing, “Short. Sweet. Has made an extraordinary album… Go support our girl!” Carpenter’s rumored boyfriend and “Please Please Please” video co-star, Academy Award-nominated actor Barry Keoghan, shared a link to buy the album in his own Instagram story on Aug. 29. That same day, Ye (formerly Kanye West) shared a link to buy Scott’s album in his Instagram story.

While Carpenter’s and Scott’s albums lead the top 10 action, they aren’t the only debuts in the region. Country singer-songwriter Lainey Wilson notches her first top 10-charting set on the Billboard 200, as Whirlwind blows in at No. 8 in its opening week.

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multimetric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new Sept. 7, 2024-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Wednesday, Sept. 4 (a day later than usual due to the Labor Day holiday in the U.S. on Sept. 2). For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.

Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet starts with 362,000 equivalent album units earned. Of that sum, album sales comprise 184,000 (her biggest sales week ever and the fifth-largest sales debut of 2024), SEA units comprise 176,000 (equaling 233 million on-demand official streams of the 12 songs on the streaming edition of the album; her largest streaming week ever and the fourth-largest streaming debut of 2024) and TEA units comprise 2,000.

Short n’ Sweet also opens at No. 1 on the Streaming Albums chart.

Short n’ Sweet is Carpenter’s seventh charting album but first to reach the top 20. Her first visit to the chart came in 2015 with Eyes Wide Open, peaking at No. 43. Until this week, Carpenter’s best chart rank came with the 2022 release Emails I Can’t Send, which debuted and peaked at No. 23. The album includes “Nonsense,” which marked her first top 10-charting hit on the Pop Airplay chart. She followed it up with “Feather,” a bonus track added to a deluxe edition of Emails. “Feather” floated to No. 1 on Pop Airplay and marked her first top 40-charting song on the Hot 100.

The Short n’ Sweet campaign began brewing on the charts with its lead single, “Espresso,” which reached No. 3 on the Hot 100 in June and No. 1 on Pop Airplay in July. A second single, “Please Please Please,” followed, and it hit No. 1 on the Hot 100 in its second week on the list in June, and tops the Sept. 7-dated Pop Airplay chart. The set’s third promoted song, “Taste,” debuts at No. 34 on the Sept. 7-dated Pop Airplay ranking.

The official music videos for “Please” and “Taste” are also starry affairs, with the former co-starring Keoghan and the latter featuring actress Jenna Ortega.

Short n’ Sweet’s sales were bolstered by its availability across nine vinyl variants, five CD editions, two cassettes and four digital album download variants. Vinyl sales combined totaled 105,000  – Carpenter’s best week on vinyl and the second-largest sales week of the year for a vinyl album. Short n’ Sweet also debuts at No. 1 on the Vinyl Albums chart.

As for the rest of the album’s first-week sales, it sold 33,000 on CD; 45,000 digital download albums; and 2,000 cassettes.

Among Short n’ Sweet’s vinyl variants were some exclusively sold through Carpenter’s official webstore, including one variant with a bonus track, a picture disc and a signed edition. Her webstore also exclusively carried a signed CD.

There were also exclusive editions of her physical album sold through the likes of Amazon (a color vinyl and a CD with alternative packaging), Target (a color vinyl, and a CD containing a poster) and Urban Outfitters (a color vinyl).

As for its digital download variants, Short n’ Sweet was initially issued widely through digital retailers (including her webstore) as a standard 12-song album. The set did not garner additional variants until Aug. 28-29, the final days of the tracking week. Carpenter issued one variant in the evening of Aug. 28, followed by a second variant in the afternoon of Aug. 29, with a third arriving around 10 p.m. ET on Aug. 29. All were exclusively sold via her webstore for $4.99 each (the minimum price required for chart eligibility), and all contained the standard album’s 12 songs, plus one bonus track each. (The standard digital album was also discounted to $4.99 on Aug. 29 in both her webstore and in the iTunes Store.)

Of the additional variants, first came the Bonus Track Digital Album edition, with the extra song “Needless to Say.” Then the Short n’ Sweet(er) edition was second, and it came with the bonus track “Busy Woman.” The final variant was the Short n’ Sweet(est) edition with a demo recording of “Taste” as its bonus track.

The three alternative variants became unavailable to purchase on Aug. 30.

At No. 2 on the Billboard 200, Scott’s Days Before Rodeo enters with 361,000 equivalent album units earned. Of that sum, album sales comprise 331,000 (the second-biggest sales week of 2024, trailing only the 1.91 million sales start of Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department), SEA units comprise 30,000 (equaling 40.63 million on-demand official streams of the 12 songs on the album’s streaming edition) and TEA units comprise less than 500 units.

Days Before Rodeo also debuts at No. 1 on the Top Album Sales chart.

Days Before Rodeo was initially released as a free mixtape on Aug. 18, 2014. It garnered its first commercial and official streaming release for its 10th anniversary, on Aug. 23, as the 12-track set was issued through all major digital retail and streamers. Scott ushered in the album’s official release with an anniversary concert on Aug. 22 at The Masquerade in Atlanta, where he performed 10 of the standard album’s 12 songs, in addition to other material.

Of Days Before Rodeo’s first-week sales, digital download comprise 300,000 – the largest download sales week for an album this year. (The rest of the album’s sales came from CD purchases.) The set’s download sales were bolstered by its availability across eight different editions of the digital album, six of which were exclusively sold through Scott’s official webstore. Aside from the standard 12-song download album, the other seven variants contained assorted bonus tracks (ranging from unreleased studio cuts, to live tracks from The Masquerade concert, and chopped and screwed remixes of the album’s songs).

All variants sold via Scott’s webstore were priced at $4.99, while versions available in the iTunes Store were also available for $4.99 at the end of the tracking week.

Here’s a recap of the assorted digital album variants and when they were released:

Aug. 23 – Standard Digital Download – 12-song standard album, widely available, though not in Scott’s webstore.

Aug. 23 – Digital Deluxe Album – 12-song standard album with five bonus previously unreleased songs (“Mo City Flexologist”; “Too Many Chances”; “Yeah Yeah,” featuring Young Thug; “Serenade”; and “Whole Lots Changed”), available for pre-order beginning Aug. 18 (the day of the 10th anniversary of the mixtape’s initial free release). Exclusive to Scott’s webstore.

Aug. 29 – Digital Deluxe Album Vault 1 – 12-song standard album with the five bonus songs included on the Digital Deluxe Album (above), plus a PDF booklet. Widely available, including Scott’s webstore.

Aug. 29 – Digital Deluxe Album Vault 2 – 12 song standard album with two bonus previously unreleased songs (“Hold On,” featuring Young Thug and Quavo; and “Respected”). Exclusive to Scott’s webstore.

Aug. 29 – DBR Standard Edition + Live From Atlanta – 12-song standard album with 12 bonus live songs from Scott’s concert at The Masquerade. Exclusive to Scott’s webstore.

Aug. 29 – DBR Deluxe Edition + Chopped and Screwed Edition – 12-song standard album, plus the seven bonus songs included on the Digital Deluxe Album and Vault 1 editions (above), and “slowed and chopped” remixes of 18 of the album’s songs. Exclusive to Scott’s webstore.

Aug. 29 – Digital Deluxe Album Vault 3 – 12-song standard album with two bonus previously unreleased songs (“Naughty” and “Too Many Options,” featuring an uncredited Young Thug). Exclusive to Scott’s webstore.

Aug. 29 – Digital Deluxe Album Vault 4 – 12-song standard album with two bonus previously unreleased songs (“Whoudini,” featuring an uncredited Playboi Carti; and a remix of “Quintana, Pt. 2”). Exclusive to Scott’s webstore.

Vault 1 was released in the morning of Thursday, Aug. 29, while the rest of the editions issued on Aug. 29 had a staggered release through the rest of the day, until Vault 4 dropped shortly before 11:30 p.m. ET. All download variants, except for the standard widely available 12-song edition, became unavailable for purchase on Aug. 30.

In terms of physical formats, the set was available as a CD during its debut week, only via Scott’s webstore. It was sold both as a stand-alone CD and as part of a deluxe boxed set containing a branded hat and a CD. Two vinyl variants (a standard edition, and one in expanded packaging), as well as two further boxed sets (one containing a hoodie and the standard vinyl, one with a T-shirt and the deluxe vinyl) were available to pre-order during the tracking week, but have yet to ship to customers, so they do not impact its debut numbers.

A wide retail release beyond Scott’s webstore for any physical formats of the album has not been announced.

With both Short n’ Sweet and Days Before Rodeo each launching with over 360,000 equivalent album units earned, it’s the first time that two albums have earned at least 360,000 units in the same week in over eight years. It last happened on the May 14, 2016-dated chart, when Beyoncé’s Lemonade bowed at No. 1 with 653,000 and Prince’s The Very Best of Prince earned 391,000 units at No. 2 (shortly after his death). The latter title, first released in 2001, had re-entered at No. 1 the previous week.

As both Days Before Rodeo and Short n’ Sweet are debuts – the last time the chart housed two debuting titles earning at least 360,000 units came on the Dec. 5, 2015-dated chart, when Justin Bieber’s Purpose premiered with 649,000 and One Direction’s Made in the A.M. launched at No. 2 with 459,000.

Post Malone’s F-1 Trillion falls to No. 3 with 111,000 equivalent album units (down 55%), after debuting atop the chart a week ago. Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess dips 2-4 with 72,000 (up less than 1%), Morgan Wallen’s chart-topping One Thing at a Time slips 4-5 with 58,000 (down 3%), Swift’s former No. 1 The Tortured Poets Department descends 3-6 with 57,000 (down 8%) and Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft falls 5-7 with nearly 53,000 (down 2%).

Lainey Wilson ropes her first top 10-charting effort on the Billboard 200 with the No. 8 debut of her fifth studio album, Whirlwind. The set swirls in with 48,000 equivalent album units earned — her best week ever by units. Of that sum, album sales comprise 34,000; SEA units comprise 14,000 (equaling 17.83 million on-demand official streams of the 14 songs on the streaming edition of the album) and TEA units comprise less than 1,000.

The set’s first-week sales were bolstered by its availability across eight vinyl variants, three CD editions (including a signed edition sold in Wilson’s webstore, and a Walmart-exclusive CD containing a branded patch and a bonus track), a standard digital download album, and a deluxe digital album variant with four bonus “worktape” recordings (sold via Wilson’s webstore).

The new album was led by the single “Hang Tight Honey,” which reached the top 20 of the Hot Country Songs chart in August and is percolating in the top 15 of the Country Airplay chart (after reaching a No. 13 high in August).

Whirlwind is the follow-up to Bell Bottom Country, which marked Wilson’s first album to reach the all-genre Billboard 200 (peaking at No. 51) and climbed to No. 9 on Top Country Albums. The set won the Grammy Award for best country album, the Country Music Association (CMA) award for album of the year, and the Academy of Country Music (ACM) award for album of the year. (It became only the ninth album ever to win all three trophies.) Bell Bottom Country spun off three top 10-charting hits on Hot Country Songs — “Heart Like a Truck,” “Watermelon Moonshine” and “Wildflowers and Wild Honey.” All three also reached the top five on the Country Airplay chart, with “Watermelon” topping the tally.

Closing out the top 10 of the new Billboard 200 are Zach Bryan’s The Great American Bar Scene, which falls 6-9 with 41,000 equivalent album units earned (down 7%), and Noah Kahan’s Stick Season, slipping 8-10 with 37,000 units (down 2%).

Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.